"I'm sorry." I said it fast before he could catch his breath.
"I don't know why I keep hoping..." He hesitated, stopped, then turned to me slowly. "What did you say?"
"I said, I'm sorry."
His face softened for a second, then hardened, and he narrowed his eyes at me. He looked positively suspicious. "What exactly are you sorry about?"
"I'm sorry you're upset."
"Oh." And he was off again, ranting.
I touched his arm, and he didn't jerk away this time, but he kept listing all the things I wouldn't do for him, or with him. It might have been embarrassing if I hadn't been more worried about stopping the fight than almost anything else. "You have to go to work tonight," I said.
That stopped him, because I think it made no sense with his train of grievances. "What? Yes, what about it?"
"If you didn't have to work tonight, I'd take you into the bedroom now and mark you, if that's what you wanted."
He pulled away again. "I don't want you to do it just because I'm mad. I want you to do it because you want to, because you'd enjoy it, too."
God, he could be so demanding. I actually had to stop and count slowly in my head, because this whole dominant-submission thing hit my buttons badly. I'd done enough research to understand that the world of dom and sub was a lot bigger and more varied than I'd believed. That there were people out there that considered my love of nails and teeth during foreplay and sex to be perverted. That they considered even that bondage. I liked teeth and nails during foreplay and sex, I really did. It wasn't pretend, and it wasn't just for Nathaniel's sake. Once I thought it through to that point, I wasn't angry with him. I wasn't mad about what he wanted; I was uncomfortable because I enjoyed it. I knew that now, and I embraced it all the way through my head. Well, I wasn't quite there yet.
I tried for honesty with him and myself. "I'd love the feel of your neck under my teeth. I'd love to sink my mouth around all the meaty parts of you and bite down until I was afraid I'd hurt you." I felt heat rush up my face, and I had to close my eyes to finish it. "I loved the feel of you in my mouth. I loved marking you, but I wasn't ready to admit it. And it still makes me uncomfortable, but it's not because it's you, it's because it just seems so... so, I don't know..."
"Perverted," Gregory suggested.
I opened my eyes to glare at him. "Don't help me, Gregory, okay?"
"Sorry."
"Do you mean what you just said?" Nathaniel asked, and his voice was oddly empty, as if he were trying very hard not to be angry or hopeful.
I met his face, and even his eyes were being careful. I hated to see him managing me that hard, as if he were afraid if he appeared too eager I'd run. Problem was, he might have been right. I realized I'd been doing my own version of what Richard was doing. I wasn't running from as much of myself as he was, but if I hadn't had the ardeur to push me, I might have been. If I could have pretended as cleanly as Richard could, I would have. That I could at least admit to myself. The ardeur had made that impossible. But this wasn't about the ardeur. This was about Nathaniel and me, and the happy little domestic arrangement that we had.
I'd waited too long to answer. Nathaniel's eyes filled with such sorrow, and he turned away. Oh, hell. I grabbed his face between my hands and went up on tiptoes to make up for that three-inch height difference. I'd startled him so that he stumbled back into the cabinets. I plastered myself against the front of his body and kissed him. I kissed him as if I were eating him. I set my teeth into that lovely lower lip and bit down, not enough to mark, but enough to draw a small sound from his throat. I leaned back from the kiss enough to see his eyes wide and unfocused. His hands gripped the cabinet behind him so tight, they were mottled. It was almost as if he was afraid he'd fall.
I was breathing a little hard myself. My voice was shaky when I said, "That wasn't metaphysical shit. That was just me, just you."
His eyes closed, and a shudder ran through him from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet. He swayed, and if I hadn't caught him around the waist, I think he'd have fallen. His arms slid around me, and he laid his head on my shoulder. He hadn't exactly fainted, but he was limp in my arms. I realized, he was totally passive. I knew in that moment I could do anything I wanted to him. The thought didn't excite me, it scared me. I had enough trouble running my own life, I didn't want someone else's. But I kept my doubts to myself. He had enough of his own without me sharing.
"You promise," he whispered, "promise you'll mark me tonight."
He'd said the P word. Shit. "I promise," I whispered it into the vanilla warmth of his hair.
He drew a deep breath that moved his bare chest up and down along my clothed one. My body reacted to it, whether I wanted it to or not. Nipples hardening from the brush of him.
He drew back enough to see my face, and the look in his eyes was all male, and brought heat in a rush up my face. It sped my pulse in my throat. He was submissive, but underneath all that was something that could have been very dangerous, and it was there in his eyes now, that promise of disaster.
"Come to the club tonight, see my act, please."
I shook my head. "I work tonight."
"Please." The please was more than just a word, it filled his eyes. He wanted me to see him on stage, surrounded by screaming fans. Maybe he wanted to impress on me that even if I didn't want him, others did. I guess I'd earned having my face rubbed in it.
"What time do you go on?"
He told me.
"I can catch some of it, but probably not all of it."
He kissed me, hard and strangely chaste, and bounced toward the door. "I'll need to see if my costume is ready for tonight." He turned at the door with that eager look still on his face. "What if I turn furry, will you still mark me?"
"I don't do furry," I said.
He poked his lip out at me, like a spoiled child.
"You are so damn pushy, you do know that, right?"
He smiled.
"I don't do furry."
"But if I'm not furry, you'll do it?" Something about the way he asked it made me suspicious, but I nodded.
"Yes."
He vanished into the dimness of the living room. "I'll see you tonight at the club."
I yelled after him. "If there's another murder, all bets are off. Murder takes precedence over watching my boyfriend strip." There was that word again, boyfriend.
I heard Nathaniel's laugh trail down the stairs. It reminded me of another man in my life, who'd left me with a laugh this morning. I was just amusing the hell out of everybody today.
27
Micah's kiss was still warm on my lips when Ronnie rang the doorbell. Having had no sleep last night was finally catching up with Micah, so he'd gone to bed. Besides, Ronnie wouldn't want an audience.
She was eyeing the door as I dragged it open. "What happened here?"
I tried to think of a short version, couldn't come up with one, and said, "Let's get coffee first."
Her eyebrows went up, but it was all I could see of her eyes behind the dark sunglasses. She shrugged. She was wearing the brown leather jacket that had become her latest favorite coat. She had it zipped up more than halfway and a cable-knit sweater peeked out from under it.
I hid my frown. It had to be seventy outside. I eased the door back into its frame. "Is it cold outside, or am I missing something?"
Her shoulders hunched. "I've been cold since I left the wedding last night. I just can't seem to get warm."
I did not remark that most shapeshifters have a slightly higher body temperature than we mere humans, and that maybe the warmth she was missing went by the name of Louie. I didn't say it, because it would have been too obvious, and too cruel.
She walked through the darkened living room, to the opened curtains of the kitchen beyond. When I'd been sure that Damian was down for the day, I'd opened the drapes. She hesitated just inside the kitchen. "Where is everybody?"
"Micah had to get some sleep. Gregory and Nathaniel are upst
airs working on an outfit for work. Something about some straps breaking."
She sat in the chair that Richard had been in, so she could keep an eye on most of the doors, and still look outside at the view. Or maybe it had been an accident, and I was projecting why. I doubted Richard had thought about safety considerations when he chose the seat. But again, maybe I wasn't being fair. Oh, well.
She kept the dark glasses on, though it wasn't that bright anymore. Her blond hair was straight, but thick, and looked like she'd combed it, but nothing else, so the ends didn't do the curl up that she liked. She almost never went out without more done to it than this. In fact, she sat hunched at the table, over the coffee mug, like a hangover victim.
"You ready for biscuits?" I asked.
"Does he actually cook?"
I almost said, If you were around more, you'd know, but I was good. "Yeah, he cooks. He does the grocery shopping, most of the menu planning, and most of the housework."
"My, isn't he a regular domestic goddess." Her voice was ugly when she said it.
I'd be nice because she was hurting, but that would only cover so much, then she'd piss me off, and I really didn't want to fight with Ronnie this morning. "I needed a wife," I said, and managed to keep my voice neutral.
"Don't we all," she said, and there was no malice now. She took the tiniest sip of coffee. "I don't think I could eat right now."
I took a much bigger sip of coffee, and said, "Okay, do you have a plan for how this talk will go?"
She looked up at me, still wearing the glasses so I couldn't see her eyes. "What do you mean?"
"You wanted to talk, I assume about Louie and what happened last night, right?"
"Yeah."
"Then talk," I said.
"It's not that simple," she said.
"Okay, then can I ask a question?"
"Depends on the question," she said.
I took a big breath and plunged into the deep end. "Why did you say no to Louie's proposal?"
"Oh, not you, too."
"What?" I asked.
"Don't tell me you expected me to just say yes?"
I wanted her to take off the glasses so I could see her eyes, see what she was thinking. "Actually, yeah."
"Why, for God's sake?"
"Because I've never seen you happier for longer with anyone," I said.
She pushed her coffee away, as if she was angry at it, too. "Happy the way things are , Anita. Why does he have to go and change everything?"
"You spend more nights at each other's places together than alone, right?"
She just nodded.
"He said he offered to move in together first, why not try it?"
"Because I want my stuff. I love Louie, but I hate how he's taken over my closet, my medicine cabinet. He's taken two of the dresser drawers over for his clothes."
"The bastard," I said.
"It's not funny," she said.
"No, I know. Did you tell him you didn't like him moving his stuff in?"
"I tried."
"Do you want him gone, poof, out of your life?"
She shook her head. "No, but I want my apartment back, the way it was. I don't like coming home and finding that he's rearranged everything in my cabinets so it's easier to find. If I want to dig through every cabinet to find tomato paste, then it was my choice. He didn't even ask, I just came home one night, and he'd organized everything in the kitchen. I couldn't find anything." She must have sounded pouty even to herself, because she jerked off the glasses and gave the full force of those pain-filled gray eyes. "You think I'm being silly, don't you?"
"No, he should have probably asked you before rearranging everything." The fact that Nathaniel had not only rearranged everything in my kitchen, but also thrown out the non-matching stuff was probably best kept to myself.
"I love dating Louie, but I don't want to marry anybody."
"Okay."
"Just okay, you're not going to try talking me into it?"
"Hey, I'm not headed for wedded bliss either, who am I to force you into it?"
She looked at me, as if searching my face for a lie. She was pale and hollow-eyed, as if she hadn't gotten much more sleep than Micah. "But you've let Micah move in with you."
I nodded and drank coffee. "Yes."
"Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why did you want him to move in with you? I thought you liked your independence as much as I do."
"I'm still independent, Ronnie. Micah moving in didn't change that."
"He doesn't try to order you around?"
I just looked at her.
"I'm sorry, Anita, but my dad was such a bastard to my mother. I've seen pictures of her on stage in college. She wanted so much, but he wouldn't have a wife that worked. She had to be the perfect little homemaker. She hated it, and she hated him."
"You aren't your mother," I said, "and Louie isn't your father." Sometimes in these heart-to-heart talks you have to state the obvious.
"You weren't there, Anita, you didn't see it. She fell into a bottle, and he never noticed, because on the outside she was perfect. She never got roaring drunk, or falling down drunk. It was just like she needed this constant buzz to see her through the day, and the night. A functioning alcoholic is what they call it."
I didn't know what to say to that. We'd both told each other our sad stories years ago. She knew all about my mother's death, my father marrying the ice princess stepmother, and my perfect stepsister. We'd shared our bitterness toward our families long ago. I knew all this, so why tell it again? Because something about the proposal had brought it up.
"You told me months ago that Louie is nothing like your dad."
"Yeah, but he still wants to own me."
"Own you," I said, "what does that mean, own you?"
"We date, we have great sex, we enjoy each other's company, why does he have to move in, or make me marry him?" There was something like real fear in her face.
I touched her hand where it lay clenched on the tabletop. "Ronnie, he can't make you marry him."
"But if I don't agree to something, he'll leave. We either move forward, or he's gone. That's him trying to force me to marry him."
I felt like I wasn't qualified for this talk, because her logic wasn't bad, but it wasn't like that. I knew Louie, and he'd have been horrified that she saw his proposal and his need to finalize things as ownership. I was almost a hundred-percent certain he didn't mean it that way. I squeezed her hand and tried to think of what to say that would help things instead of hurt. Nothing came to mind.
"I don't know what to say, Ronnie, except that I don't believe Louie meant to hurt you like this. He loves you, and thought you loved him, and when people love each other, they tend to want to get married."
She took her hand back. "How do I know this is love? I mean the love, like till-death-do-you-part love?"
Finally something I could answer. "You don't."
"What do you mean, you don't? Isn't there supposed to be a test, or a sign, or something? I thought if I ever fell in love that this panic wouldn't be here. That I would be totally sure and unafraid, but I'm not. I'm terrified. Doesn't that mean that Louie isn't the one? That it would be a terrible mistake? Aren't you supposed to be sure?"
Now I knew I was unqualified for this conversation. I needed like a pinch hitter to offer better advice than I had. "I don't know."
"Were you sure when you let Micah move in, sure that it was the right thing to do?"
I thought about it, then shrugged. "It wasn't like that. He moved in almost before we'd dated, I..." How do you put into words things that you only feel, things that have no words attached to them? "I don't know why I didn't panic when he moved in, it just happened. One day I walk into the bathroom, and there's a razor and a shaving kit. Then, when the clean clothes got put away, his T-shirts got mixed in with mine, and since they're the same size, we left it that way. I've never dated anyone before who can wear the same clothes I can, it's kind of neat to wear
his jeans sometimes, or his shirt, especially if it smells like his cologne."
"God, you love him," she said in despair, almost a wail.
I shrugged and drank coffee, because talking was making it worse. "Maybe," I said.
She shook her head. "No, no, your face goes all soft when you talk about him. You love him." She crossed her arms over her chest and looked at me like I'd betrayed her somehow.
"Look, Micah moved in gradually, but I didn't feel crowded the way you did with Louie. I like having his things in the bathroom. I like having a his and her side of the closet. Seeing his stuff with my stuff gives me a full cupboard feeling."
"A what?" she asked.
"Getting a T-shirt out and realizing that it's one I bought for him because it brings out the green in his eyes gives me that I've got my favorite foods in the cupboard and it's a winter night, and I don't have to go out in it feeling. I've got everything I need at home."
She looked at me in soft horror.
Hearing myself say it out loud was a little frightening, but mostly it was thrilling. Because I'd answered my question, in trying to answer hers, I'd answered my own. I was smiling, even as she looked at me in shock. I couldn't help the smile, I was feeling better than I'd felt in days. But another thought occurred to me. I wasn't smiling when I said, "Remember how you couldn't understand why I didn't just jump at Richard when he asked me to marry him?"
"I didn't say marry him, I just said dump the vampire and keep the werewolf."
That made me smile. "I remember coming home, and Richard had used his key to get in to cook me dinner without asking, and I hated it. I felt all grumpy and like my privacy had been invaded."
She nodded. "That's it, it's like putting on a new sweater that's just the right color and fits perfectly, but the next time you wear it, you realize it's scratchy, and unless you wear a shirt under it, it itches you. It's a great sweater, but you need a little distance between it and your skin."
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